Study of traveling wave reactor (TWR) and CANDLE strategy: A review work

•Study of traveling wave reactor was reviewed.•Application of CANDLE strategy was introduced.•Merits and drawbacks of traveling wave reactor were indicated.•Focus of future study of traveling wave reactor was introduced.

TWR applies the mechanism of self-sustainable and propagating nuclear fission traveling waves in fertile material. Natural uranium or depleted uranium can be used as fresh fuel to achieve very high burn-up without enrichment and reprocessing and TWR has been theoretically and numerically investigated due to these important merits. CANDLE (Constant Axial shape of Neutron flux, nuclide densities and power shape During Life of Energy) burn-up strategy, axial fuel shuffling strategy and radial fuel shuffling strategy were proposed. After CANDLE strategy was proposed, it has been applied to many reactors, such as LBE (lead bismuth eutectic) cooled reactor, high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR), small long life fast reactor, supercritical water cooled fast reactor (SCWR) and sodium cooled fast reactor (SFR). Because of the length limit of CANDLE reactor, axial and radial fuel shuffling concept were proposed and investigated. At the end of this review, the limitations of TWR were indicated and the focus of future study was introduced.